10/01/10

As the recession continues to bite it’s more important than ever that your website has the edge over your competitors – but where do you start? Most business owners appreciate the need for Search Engine Optimisation but hear a lot of horror stories about ‘cowboy’ SEO companies, a bit like the double glazing trade 20 years ago.

Of course there are no guarantees with SEO, we are all at the mercy of Google and you should always be wary of companies promising the earth e.g. “We guarantee the Number 1 spot on Google”. At LandingNet we prefer to take a slightly different approach and prefer to empower the companies we deal with so that they can learn SEO techniques that are tailored to their website and business needs.

Friendly, Affordable Web Training

We analyse your site and then use the information to show you, on a one-to-one basis, how you can improve your search engine rankings. We look at all aspects of search engine marketing including SEO, Google Adwords (PPC), Usability, Accessibility, Page Speed, Google Analytics etc. The package is completely bespoke and tailored to your needs. Working with you on your website, demonstrating the tools and skills you need to run a successful website.

We can also help you secure funding making it a very cost effective solution to your SEO needs. There are schemes still available to receive funding towards such training, which will mean you can receive £1,500 of training/consultancy and only pay £500 yourself.

If you like more information on our tailored website marketing training and consultancy, or would like to learn more about your options to receive funding or grants, please contact us.

So what is usability?

‘The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.’

So basically in a nutshell this means you want your visitors to come to your site, find what they’re after (and potentially purchase) quickly and easily and leave your site feeling happy about the whole process. Happy customers means returning customers!

In a study undertaken by Jakob Nielson in 2003, following a thorough usability evaluation and a redesign based on the results, websites average increase in usability was 135%

Metric

Average Improvement

Sales / Conversion rate

100%

Number of visitors

150%

Time taken to complete task

161%

Use of target features

202%

What do I need to do?

You’ve got a couple of options; you can either pay out a few thousand pounds to a company to run a usability test for you, or you can actually talk to your users!

It is critical to do two things: Identify and profile your users, and identify and profile their tasks.

Without identifying these two variables, how can you hope to have a website that’s usable to them and supports their needs? In effect, you would have ‘designed in the dark’ for them.

This all comes down to user-centred design and usability concepts, both of which we’ll be covering the basics of in our usability training courses that we’re currently developing.

06/30/09

Looking to improve your knowledge of SEO or Google Analytics?

Recently we’ve been mulling over the most effective ways to help local businesses promote themselves online and realised we’ve missed one vital area – training courses.

We felt that with finances so tight for businesses at present, paying a digital agency such as ourselves an ongoing fee to manage their websites and/or online marketing may stretch budgets too far. Instead, a one-off charge is far more manageable and invests valuable knowledge in either the business owner or a member of staff who may act as Webmaster.

Lovely Stats - But What Do They Really Mean?

Over the coming weeks we’ll be talking to website owners to distill their training “wants and needs” into a focused training course.

This will be via either one-day training courses based in Fulbeck, Lincolnshire with gourmet lunch provided or alternatively, at the clients business premises (where the client takes us out for lunch of course! ;O)

The latter would be the more expensive option as it would effectively be one-to-one consultation, with the Fulbeck course aimed at small groups of about 6 people, helping to reduce the cost per person.

One area we feel is vital for any web training course to be successful is the support after the course ends. So all our training courses will come with a minimum of seven days email and phone support, ensuring any problems or questions that arise after the course can easily be resolved with the trainer.

We’d really love to hear any feedback or suggestions you might have about the correct course content, how long the courses should run and preferred locations?

If all goes well, we’ll put on the first web training course completely FREE so even if you are only vaguely interested, drop us an email and we’ll put your name in a hat (or similar storage device?) to see who gets to come!